What Little Girls Are Made Of
by ShelleyBarnard
Summary: VLC-based fic. Ethan's feelings for Dawn are becoming chaotic.


NOTE: This fic is based upon the Virtual Lunatic's season eight, which you can find at www.virtualunatics.com This is a fantastic series, and well with your time if you haven't read it already.  
  
Spoilers: "Batteries," the sixth episode from VLC's Virtual Season Eight, to be found at www.virtualunatics.com/episodes/ep6-batteries/eps6prev.html   
  
Pairing: Dawn/Ethan. Yes, I know, it's not nice. There is no need to review if all you're going to do is repeat to me my own opinion that this is a yucky pairing.  
  
Disclaimer: Mutant Enemy owns Giles and all his friends; the talented writers on VLC own all the residents of Whispering Pines. Please don't accept this as VLC canon, for I am in no way connected with their season eight. I have no idea where they are going with their Dawn/Ethan story line (hopefully not where I took it!) so this fic is just for my own perverse amusement.   
  
Guilt was a new feeling for Ethan. It was strange, and disconcerting, and not at all to his liking. He had never understood why Ripper wallowed in it, and he was even more baffled now. Guilt was a killjoy.   
  
It was entirely Dawn's fault, of course. He had come looking for a source of mystical energy, and had found a charming young woman instead. He had found a friend. And what the hell did he want with one of those? He already had one friend who made a habit of thrashing Ethan at every encounter; a second friend might very well do him in.   
  
It had all seemed so simple. Follow the energy signal to its source, drain it, and move on. There shouldn't have been any emotional consequence, just a quick fix. He would recover all the magic that the Initiative had stolen from him, and never again think about from where his replenished energy originated. Simple and elegant.  
  
It was a bit of a shock for him when he learned that his mystical energy (and yes, he did think of it as his, even before he found it) came in the shape of a teenaged girl. Still, this discovery hadn't posed too much of a problem for him. In fact, he had been delighted by the complication; the girl's beauty and innocence added a spice of fun to his task.  
  
A more serious complication arose when he learned that his old pal Ripper was protecting the energy source. *His* energy source. Ripper had always been stronger than he, both physically and magically; Ethan's main strength lay in manipulation. And yet, they had never been *too* far apart in any of their abilities... until now. After four years in an Initiative holding facility, his physical and magical strengths were non-existent, and his cunning was greatly deplenished. There was no way he could battle Ripper without first draining his source, and he doubted very much that his old friend would stand aside while he did so. Bastard.  
  
But it wasn't Ripper who threw the real kink into his plan. It was Dawn. He should have realized that he was in trouble when she gave him that awful tea for "entertainment." Anyone with such an affinity for useless mischief was bound to appeal to him. He should have drained her completely when he went to her house that first night, and then run as far away from Whispering Pines as he could get.  
  
Instead, he struck up a friendship with his prize. It may have been entirely feigned at first, but this didn't last for long. He genuinely liked her. He still liked himself more, but it was a close thing. Dawn was quirky and strong-willed, and quite fond of petty jokes. He hadn't enjoyed anyone's company so much for decades.   
  
The most intelligent thing for him to do, of course, would have been for him to drain Dawn at the earliest opportunity and thus avoid all danger of running into Ripper or his dreadful Slayer. So, of course, being Ethan, he did the exact opposite. He only took small amounts at a time, always giving Dawn time to recoup before seeing her again. As long as he was careful with what he took, she rejuvenated while sleeping. Oh, not 100% perhaps, but close enough, and her slow decline was noticeable to no one besides Ethan. He also tracked down every other person in Whispering Pines who was drawing off of the girl *his* girl and eliminated them. No one would hurt Dawn. No one but him.   
  
One horrifying night he took too much from her, and she stopped breathing. Ethan briefly considered draining her completely, but he found that he couldn't do that. The damn girl was his friend, whether he liked it or not, and he couldn't let her die. He covered her mouth with his own and gave her CPR... and was almost overwhelmed with the outpouring of power. It took everything he had not to suck it in when it was so available, but somehow he resisted. He told himself that the power would still be there when she was stronger. He would take it then, now that he knew how to go about it.  
  
Ethan began putting glamours on himself before he went to see Dawn. He changed her memories of "Randall" from a 51-year-old man to a 25-year-old. He romanced her. He swept her off her feet.  
  
Ethan made no effort to seduce her into his bed, even though he was fairly certain that he would be successful if he tried. Dawn was obsessed with him, as only a seventeen-year-old girl could be. No, he was happy with snogging and light petting. Each long deep passionate kiss drew enough power into his frame to make him feel like a Goliath, and went a long way towards healing all the damage inflicted upon him by the Initiative. Not only was he healing, he was becoming more powerful than he ever had been before. It was enough. For now.  
  
Besides, he didn't know what the power-transfer that would accompany actual sex would do to Dawn. He enjoyed her company far too much to risk anything fatal happening to her.   
  
Though, sometimes, when she passed out from an especially deep kiss and his head was spinning from the influx of Dawn's energy, he would wonder. And sometimes, late at night when he was hurting, and his medications weren't helping, and he was almost shaking because he needed for a power boost so badly... yes, he wondered what energies he could take from her during the act of sex. He wondered, but he swore to himself that he wouldn't abuse her so. And then he would feel momentarily depressed, because he knew that he had never once kept a vow throughout his entire life.  
  
Sometimes, he almost hoped that Ripper would catch him before he could break his promise to himself. He *almost* hoped that... because as much as he liked Dawn, he liked himself more. He always had.  
  
THE END 


End file.
